Progress

I believe it was back in 2006 that I started doing the blog and marketing thing. I recall struggling terribly for a few views and there was no such thing as a comment. I spent quite some time penning articles about nonsense. Thinking back now it was just a serious lack of passion. I had no belief in it and thusly it did not grow. I got by don't get me wrong but it wasn't 'fun'.

I was really leery about blogging again, or going public. I've been hiding in my own little reality for a while and I've come to enjoy the safety of it. I didn't want to spend hours tweaking settings and optimizing everything only to have 2 views. Fortunately I was spared that gut wrenching this time around.

Perhaps I have found something to be passionate about again and it is showing through or maybe it is just a better time for it. Being more social certainly helps. All around I am starting to feel more and more like this ambition may turn into fruition. So far I have established enough views to actually call it traffic. Considering my projects are less than a week old I think that in itself is worth dancing a jig over. I am so pleased to be able to interact with the world outside of a Facebook page.

I expect it will take time to build a genuine readership, and to have folks that actually follow, join, or comment is perhaps a matter of luck. Sometimes you have a talkative audience, more often you have voyeurs. I am guilty of that one myself, lurking in the background. In all honesty it's kind of creepy (which is probably why it suits me) but I am working to rectify that. One thing all artists need, be it visual or authoring is feedback. We need to know that someone has seen our efforts. It's always nice to have someone oooh and ahhh but genuine commentary shows thought and gives us tools we would otherwise not have to work with.

All in all for my first week out here new and raw as I am I feel pretty good about my overall impact. There is a sense of having achieved something I set out to do. Admittedly I am a long way from my goal. There is so much more to be done - after all this is still really in test mode but I feel I've made a few big steps forward.

Now of course I will need to finish some of my projects and get a proper scan of my works so I may present them in the fashion I originally intended. My plan is to spend this entire year building my gallery and setting up so that sometime next year I may make the leap to selling my work. I feel I've made a good foothold here in March. I think the time restraint is doable provided I apply strict adherence to my timeline. This requires at least 6 hours per day devoted to this project. Be it painting, setting up, marketing, optimizing, or gathering supplies it must be spent purely on the goal at hand. So far... so good.

Here's to the future of this project, maybe I will even give it a name as I go lol. Thank you to all who are along for the ride, and have given me the boost of confidence I so needed to keep this going forward!

Becoming Real

I hadn't really thought a whole lot about it until I decided to blog again but I've had separate identities for close to a decade now. There's the me that the people on this side of the monitor know and of course the person that the people on your side of the screen are more familiar with. The two really are not so different. I have a fairly strong personality and it translates accurately. People are just as confused here as you are there. I am a very multifaceted person, I've dealt with a lot, and I have the spirit of an artist. How could I not be a little... eclectic?

Even so, there is the Kij0 persona which has overtaken Laurel for all intents and purposes. There is also the old Rhode Island life that involved many of the people I grew up with as well as the ex (the Laurel). There is the  life that happened after I walked away from all of that (the Kij0). Then there is the now. But up until now I've not really mixed Kij0/Laurel too much. I may seem to be very free and open about a lot of my life but I hold a whole lot back and I am much more private than most think. I am not a picture person, have not been since I was a teeny bopper. I just don't care for my image everywhere so that's one thing that is constant between the two personas. No flashy stuff.

When I chose to venture into painting and started kicking around the idea of going "pro" it occurred to me one of the failings that would be inevitable. I would have to merge the two. Somehow to me it feels like I'm showing my panties. I can't really hide behind one or the other, I have to own my own works. Things I've written, drawn, created, and been involved in are vital in my overall body of work and in proving to myself I deserve the title "Artist". I cringe when I reread things I've written more often than not. Again with the panty flashing. It's worse than an accidental camel toe, seriously.

Social networking is lovely for linking everything together and automating your life. Birthday reminders, intimate detail updates, and mixing every person you've ever known in one feed. Sort of like walking into a room of people and realizing you've slept with all of them, and they aren't all the opposite sex. Not that I've ever had such a thing happen to me....

So all this flaunting and shameless socializing is playing with my brain. There's that other alias to consider. The seizure side. The sick side. The side that should be stuffed in the closet but instead trapped me in there. The "real" me. It took me a long time to find out I was epileptic, longer still to accept that diagnosis. I spent almost a year hiding it and my ears still burn and my cheeks flush when I say it out loud or in public. It is the one thing that truly can be blamed for a great many unwanted changes in my life. Some people call them excuses, but something about a debilitating disorder really changes you. It teaches you genuine fear, humiliation, mortality, and vulnerability. When it hits you that your body controls YOU not vice versa it's earth shattering.

No matter how much it has crippled me physically, mentally, emotionally some small part of me refuses to give in. I am not ready to accept that I am disabled or incapable of finding some way. I've pulled myself out of the mud when it was ear deep. More than once. I've moved across states, changed my entire life at least four times. Changed job fields at least three times, and even had another baby. I've fought the odds a long time and won. So now comes the mother of life altering events. Merging all the fragments into one working plan that allows me to continue feeling like a contributing member of society. I just simply have to change all of my current ways, learn and implement new and better habits, and be really annoyingly... social. Ugh.

I'll do it. Watch me. :D

The Sacrificial Lamb and the Pit of DOOM

We used to own a sectional couch, and of course the center piece that joins the two ends of it is rounded. Naturally it was a fairly large piece of furniture and when put in a room it covered a good portion of two walls and the center piece had a triangular space between the back end of it and the wall.

One day my daughter dropped her stuffed lamb Lovey in that space behind the couch. She ran to her brother afraid to plumb the depths of the unknown pit and pleaded with him "Bubby I dropped my Lovey you have to save him! " He asked her "Why can't you get him?" She pushed out her bottom lip and in her most despairing voice she said "He's in the… the… the pit it's dark in there."

He reluctantly stopped what he was doing and marched into the living room and descended into the "pit. " She nervously awaited his return standing poised ever so carefully by the edge of the couch end. He decided he would teach her not to interrupt his diabolical plans and laid on the floor of the "pit" and tossed Lovey up in the air while covering his mouth producing a muffled but audible "Helllllp! Ow..owow.ahhhhh!!"

He threw the lamb up several times which attracted our 25lb cat Archimedes. Well Archy ran round the back of the couch intent on pummeling the flying lamb. Just as he got to the rounded part his weight compounded with his acceleration wreaked havoc on his paws and he fell off taking the throw on the back of the couch and Lovey with him. He landed directly on top of my son. This completely unexpected turn of events elicited a shriek of terror from my blanket blinded child.
My daughter, shocked and horrified that I was in fact laughing at this catastrophic affair went running for backup.

 "Daddy! Daddddd Bubby and Lovey fell in the pit of DOOM and they can't get out!" Being the good Dad that he was he came running to find me in a fit of giggles as his son hefted Archy over the top of the couch and came out fussing Lovey's foot clenched in his shaking fist. He threw the lamb at his sister proclaiming he would never ever return to the pit of DOOM again she could save her own lamb! He lectured her further explaining that a stuffed lamb could not die whereas HE nearly did.

She apologized, her lower lip quivering "I'm so sorry Bubby I'll never do it again I don't want to lose you!" She hugged her grumbling brother who nearly escaped death at dooms hands tightly. Thereafter any dark area deep enough to fit a lamb was considered to be 'of DOOM'

Later that evening we were going out for dinner and the hallway light had blown out. While waiting for the guys my daughter standing at the top of the stairs peered down the darkened stairwell. She turned to Lovey and whispered "It sure is dark down there Lovey, I think it could be…of DOOM." She hugged her Lovey tight and said to him matter of factly, "Go see." With that she pitched her (sacrificial) lamb down the stairs and cocked her head listening for the impending sounds of  DOOM. My husband called out "I think we're out of light bulbs." My daughter satisfied there were no sounds of Lamb DOOM replied "Lovey says it's safe Dad we don't need one."